


That One Time In Florida

by vardaesque (neonheartbeat)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crack, Dysfunctional Norse Family, Gen, Loki Has Issues, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Tony Being Tony, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:37:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/vardaesque
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt from an anonymous user on tumblr : "The Avengers and Loki are at a theme park (such as Disneyland). Loki's not that keen on going on the roller coaster."</p>
            </blockquote>





	That One Time In Florida

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Yes, I know Dueling Dragons is now Dragon Wizard Quest or whatever for the Harry Potter park. I am also aware that Universal is not in fact Disney World. I wrote this on an airplane. Hush.  
> 2\. SHIELD really shouldn't send the Avengers on PR trips. Ever.

"You have about as much of a chance of getting me on that thing as I do of becoming king of Asgard," Loki snarled at his older and far more enthusiastic brother.

"Come on, Loki. It’ll be fun," prompted Steve Rogers. He was the only Avenger besides Thor who even looked remotely pleased to have Loki there. Stark kept making snippy remarks, Banner kept his distance, and Romanoff and Barton just…tolerated him. Loki didn’t mind this treatment (in fact, he rather enjoyed it) but some part of him was just a tad annoyed that they were treating him like a wayward child. The captain’s genuine warmth was also irritating.

"No," he said.

"Oh, let him stay down here," Tony walked up wearing what appeared to be a hat made in a very bad imitation of mouse ears, flanked by Natasha and Clint, who, it appeared, had opted out of the hats and gone for jackets bearing the same strange ears. Very unnecessary, in Loki’s opinion. The heat was stifling.

"But if he does not come with us, someone must stay behind," Thor pointed out. "I would not have any of my companions miss any of the fun."

"I am not a child, Thor. I don’t need someone to watch me." Loki crossed his arms. "As if this place could possibly offer me any power. I’m not going to rule a band of idiots."

"See, it’s things like that that make us all a little twitchy," said Tony.

"SHIELD wants the good PR. We all show up to Disney World having fun, we make a good impression," said Natasha in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “If you don’t like it, Loki, you can go back to Denver and spend a few more months in maximum security. Your choice.”

Loki glared at her, and would have let loose a few choice barbs, had Clint Barton not at that exact moment held out what looked like some kind of pastry.

"Funnel cake?" he asked.

"Oooh," said Loki.

Five minutes later, Loki had demolished three funnel cakes and was feeling much better about the general outlook of things. Of course, he’d never had so much sugar in his system at once before, and that might have had something to do with it, but Thor’s enthusiasm was contagious and he couldn’t care less at this point.

"I suppose one ride wouldn’t hurt," he conceded, drawing a huge smile from Thor.

"Brother! I knew you’d come around eventually!" he beamed.

"I’m not your brother. Do try to remember that," Loki said icily.

The uncomfortable atmosphere was shattered by Clint. “Come on, let’s go, Banner is already in line,” he said.

They queued up. It was a thirty-minute wait, and most of it was spent signing autographs for kids. One tiny girl bounced up to Loki.

"You’re bad," she said with a baleful glare.

He regarded her with disdain. “And so I am,” he said coolly.

"He’s not going to try anything," said Natasha calmly. "He knows if he does, I’ll beat him up."

The little girl giggled. Loki fumed.

"Honestly," he said as she ran back to her mother, "you try to take over one little city and they all treat you like a criminal."

"Can’t imagine why," Clint said dryly. "Real mystery, that one."

"Behave," Natasha told him.

"Yes, do behave," sneered Loki.

She whirled and he flinched. “You watch it,” she warned. “I’ll still break your nose.”

He held his hands up in mock surrender and gave her a look. “Behaving, behaving.”

"Hey, we’re at the front," said Clint.

Loki looked up and dropped his hands. “Wait, how high is this contraption?”

Tony checked the sign. “About two hundred feet?”

“ _What?_ ” Loki went even paler than normal. The sugar high was wearing off, leaving an empty, panicked feeling in the pit of his stomach.

"It is called the Dueling Dragons!" boomed Thor. "Remember, brother? We fought such creatures once in Muspellheim!"

"Yes," snapped Loki acidly, "and it took me a week to recover from the burns—burns I sustained trying to save a great oaf from one very large black worm with a taste for overlarge idiots bearing hammers. Also, I’m still not your brother."

Tony broke the cold silence with a cough. “C’mon, guys, let’s get in,” he said.

Each segment seated four people. Tony, Steve, Bruce, and Clint sat in one, and Loki, Natasha, and Thor sat behind them, along with one very harried and flushed SHIELD agent who was mostly there as a placeholder and a supervisor. It was not one of his better days at work. (Even worse, in his opinion, than the day Agent Barton had accidentally set off every single one of the experimental grenades in the testing room and triggered fourteen agents into war flashbacks. Also, he hated heights.)

The ride jolted to a start and Loki almost screamed, then realized in the same second that nothing serious or life-threatening had happened, and went just a little limp with relief. The end result was a sort of choked noise. Romanoff smirked.

"What, never been for a decent ride?" she leered at him, leaning over the chest restraints.

Loki sneered back at her, though he suspected that the effect was not very good, considering his rising nausea and dropping stomach. “I could do without the innuendo, Agent Romanoff. There are children present.”

"Tony doesn’t count," she said.

"Hey, I heard that," said Tony, and then the entire contraption of metal and gears and rods lurched into an abyss.

Loki screamed, a single gut-wrenching visceral shriek of pure terror, and then he was jerked to the side so hard that he was sure his demise would come at any moment. Vaguely, he could hear Stark laughing, Clint whooping, and both Steve and Thor making loud concerned noises in his general direction.

Tears gathered in his eyes, the wind whipping at his face. He held on to the restraining bars across his shoulders in a white-knuckled death grip and shut his mouth, squeezing his eyes shut as the thing whipped him upside down and hurled him across space at terrific speeds.

Finally, the ride jerked to a stop, and Loki staggered out of the seat as fast as he could. Fortunately, he managed to make it to the nearest restroom. Unfortunately, it was the women’s restroom. Natasha sprinted in and the rest of the team gathered around in concern.

From inside, they heard her talking, and then several flustered looking women hurried out. A long silence followed, and then Natasha (looking very grim) came out with Loki (looking very green).

"What—?" began Tony.

"Do not,” she said in a voice like Russian winter, and helped Loki over to the nearest bench. “You. Sit. Clint, bring me my bag, there’s water in it.”

Clint ran off and came back with the bag, and Natasha gave the bottle of water to Loki. Everyone else watched in slight shock and a little awe.

"Is she—is she—being— _nice_? To _Loki_?”” hissed Tony to Steve, who shrugged.

"I heard that," snapped Natasha, whirling and glaring daggers at Stark. "Shockingly, Mr. Stark, I am capable of simple kindness, and am not in fact a robot. If you’re not going to help, _go away_.”

Thor sat down by Loki, making him look very white and sick in comparison indeed. “You don’t have to go on any more rides if you don’t want to, brother,” he said, looking abashed.

Loki turned very slowly. “ _I…am…not…your…brother_ ,” he hissed, and the bottle he held cracked and exploded, spraying water over the pair of them.

"Loki—"

"No! You have ever been condescending to me! I have always been in your shadow, under your perceived greatness, and you take me to this place and humiliate me further in guise of entertainment?” Loki was shrieking. People started staring.

"Shit. Evacuate the park," said Tony to the SHIELD agent, who ran off like there was nothing else in the world he’d rather do.

"I never meant to cause you grief, Loki!" Thor bellowed. "I only ever loved you!"

"I don’t _care_!” screamed Loki, and punched Thor in the nose.

"Run?" said Clint.

"Run," said Bruce, and they hurried away as fast as possible.

Once the park had been evacuated safely, the remaining Avengers all sat across the road on the curb waiting for the cloud of smoke to die down. It took a while. Tony ordered McDonalds. Bruce took a nap.

"Hey, look. I think they stopped fighting," said Clint, his mouth full of chicken nuggets.

"The smoke does seem a little thinner," said Natasha, shading her eyes.

"Bruce, wake up," said Tony, nudging Banner with his foot. "Let’s go see what our dysfunctional Norse family is up to."

The park was a pile of rubble and smoking ruins. Metal pipes protruded from every angle. It looked like a war zone. “This is going to cost SHIELD at least a million dollars,” said Steve, poking a broken pipe.

"So much for the PR stunt," groused Tony. "They’ll probably make me pay for it." He brightened a little. "Maybe I could have design input. How does ‘Starkworld’ sound?"

"Absolutely awful," said Natasha, climbing over drywall. "Wait, do you hear that?"

Everyone got really quiet. A soft rhythmic noise was coming from behind a very large tree that appeared to have been torn from the ground by its roots. Clint climbed up and looked down. “Oh,” he said awkwardly. A blast of green light shot up and smacked him square in the chest, knocking him off the tree to the ground, where he landed on his ass. “Ow!”

Natasha climbed up, looking concerned, and peered down. “Loki? Thor?”

"He’s crying," Clint stage-whispered to Steve, Tony, and Bruce. "And he got the hiccups."

Natasha disappeared over the tree and reappeared a second later with Thor and Loki in tow. Thor was sporting a black eye and his T-shirt appeared to have been burned to rags. “Come now, Loki. You are among friends,” he was saying.

Loki was limping and one of his arms was dangling awkwardly, blood running from his nose. Natasha had his good arm slung over her shoulders. “If you’re not going to help, you could at least go get the car,” she told Tony, who immediately left.

Nobody but Natasha heard the sullen apology and thank-you Loki mumbled to her. Which was just as well, because Natasha was fairly sure if anyone else had heard him express any sort of gratitude or regret, something else would have been destroyed.

(it ended up costing well over a million dollars, and yes, Tony had to fund most of it. He didn’t get to rename it, but he did design a new roller coaster. And nobody made Loki go on any roller coasters ever again, which makes this ending a very happy one indeed for all involved.)


End file.
